You make it sound much worse than it is. About 1/3 of the screen is in
the nominal autofocus area which is visible in the center of the
viewfinder as bounded by two crossing rectangles. The focusing area is
subdivided into lots of smaller areas for the actual point of focus.
The camera is free to choose one of these areas within the bounding
rectangles. The actual smaller spot where it chooses to focus is
highlighted in red when you depress the shutter button halfway.
Normally, where it chooses to focus is not of much importance since most
of the subject matter within those rectangles is at pretty much the same
distance. Consider a group of people 10 feet away for example. Inside a
camera store, however, there are hundreds of things very nearby that are
at critically short and different distances. Trying to autofocus under
these conditions will undoubtedly drive you and the camera nuts since it
has no idea what to focus on.
Your options are to tell the camera what to focus on by:
1) Punching the button in the center of the X-Y controller on the back
of the camera to enable "flex-focus"
2) Use the X-Y controller to scroll a cross-hair to exactly where you
want the camera to focus... anywhere on the screen.
3) Half depress the shutter button to autofocus on that spot. The
autofocus inidicator dot in the lower right of the screen will turn
white if focus is achieved, red if it can't focus. Hold the shutter
button half down to hold focus if you want to reframe the subject.
Alternatively, you can switch to manual focus by using the slide switch
at the left side of the body and sliding it to the rear. Focus now with
the focusing ring at the *rear* of the lens. In case you're having
trouble seeing to focus manually the screen can be amplified in low
light and will even change to B&W when the illumination is too low for
good color.
You said: "I'd rather be told that I simply can't take the shot using AF
and then switch on the fly to MF"
In the environment you were in, the camera had no way to know what you
wanted to focus on and its apparent random choice was telling you "I
can't focus here". You just didn't understand its language yet or know
how to choose one of the other options.
Chuck Norcutt
>
> Thanks, Chuck. I'm not sure it answered my question, or if it did, it made
> me less interested in the camera as something I'd want to plunk money down
> for. I'm not sure I like a camera that tells me that its AF didn't like
> any of the focus points on offer so it decided to semi-randomly pick
> another one with better contrast. I'd rather be told that I simply can't
> take the shot using AF and then switch on the fly to MF.
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